Will You Marry Me?

Forget prom ... the next gown some teens will be wearing is a wedding gown.

by Polina Pinkhasova

In the fall, like most of my peers, I will be attending college and enjoying my first bits of independent life. This hard-earned freedom will come with its own benefits, such as learning how to be a responsible adult, maybe getting a part-time job and even learning how to cook something other than cereal. All these independent luxuries will hopefully come slowly, and step-by-step I will turn from a reckless teenager into to a responsible adult.

The happy bunch of girls I shared four years of my life with are taking a twisty turn in the road to adulthood. While I’ll be guiltily learning how to boil water for frozen perogies in a college dorm, two of my classmates will be handling a

whole household of their own. My two dear classmates, who will celebrate their weddings this summer, are going under the chupah with complete confidence.

“Knowing you’re getting married is exciting, like nothing else in the world; I wake up in the morning and the first thing that pops into my head is him and that is the last thing I think about before going to sleep. ... Once you experience it, you know you are ready,” said the first bride. She is short and fair skinned with big, blue eyes and glossy brown hair. The young brides prefer to remain anonymous.

Forget the early marriage the American public is familiar with; this is no bond between two high school sweethearts who are likely as shaky about their decision as a drunk couple in Las Vegas. This is a different story. This is a marriage after completing an all-girl, Modern Orthodox yeshiva high school that hosts a large population of traditional Syrian girls.

What I found most interesting in the confidence of their upcoming marriage is the opinion of the second bride, who has brown eyes and shoulder length dark brown, wavy hair. “In our community early marriage means experiencing the world together with your husband, unlike the popular American concept of first seeing the world and then settling down and getting married,” she said. Both brides would meet after school and walk out to greet their fiancées. They are grown women in schoolgirl uniforms.

She then went on to underscore the fact that an early marriage in the Syrian community most likely means a happy marriage. “The marriage is based on extreme respect,” she said. “The Sephardic community, specifically the Syrian one, has a much lower divorce rate than that of the Ashkenazi and the whole rest of America.” For generations the girls’ parents, grandparents and relatives have preserved their marriages ever since their early union.

After high school our levels of responsibility will differ dramatically; while most of us will handle our individual needs, the brides will handle themselves and more. How does it feel to go from being a child today to having a child tomorrow? I keep asking myself the question that most of the students in mine and many other schools wonder about. The challenges of marriage at such a young age and so suddenly definitely seem like a struggle. One of the brides explained that their parents play a great role in their marriage. “Our parents are with us all the way,” said the second bride. “When we start a household, when we have children they will help out a lot which makes the challenge much easier.”
Rabbi A. Lieberman, principal of Shulamith High School for Girls in Brooklyn,
expressed his opinion after the mazel tovs for two of our dear classmates were shared on the morning after their engagements. “Some people just mature overnight,” he said.
He would say early marriage is a crazy idea but his long years working in an all-girls high school have shown him that the marriages of his students are successful ones. “The main reason I think these marriages work out is because there is a tremendous amount of support, the family makes sure to provide everything,” he said. If the bride is deprived of getting an education or a job if she desires to do so then early marriage is not one he respects.

One could ask then if the two brides will be hiding in the house waiting long days until their husbands return home from work. Wake up! This is the 21st century and the two brides want to attend college, manage a household and eventually have children. The first bride is planning to study optometry while her husband runs his family business. The second one is undecided about her major in college; her fiancé is a psychologist. Both grooms are in their early 20s.

“I don’t feel like the fact that I’m married or single should change how I want to live my life and have a job,” said the first bride. When I asked her about the transition from high school student to student and homemaker she told me, “The harder one is from high school, the safe environment, to college, the outside world,” she said. “It just happened to be I found my guy between high school and college,”
Most of us teenagers are not yet ready for marriage since we are simply not mature enough and have to first deal with the responsibility of taking care of ourselves before we move on to taking care of others.

“It all depends on the maturity of the couple; if they are mature enough to marry and handle all the responsibilities then there is nothing wrong with it,” said Shoshy Choina, a senior at Shulamith High School. “If the individual however matures later in the marriage then it could unfortunately lead to a midlife crisis, divorce...lots of couples get a lot of help from family when they marry and later on once they realize they are on their own they come in contact with reality and mature completely.”

Felicia Klots, a senior at the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, N.C., expects the bride and groom to feel absolutely sure about each other before getting married. “A person should be comfortable with everything concerning the potential spouse for example, the family,” she wrote in an e-mail. Felicia is also in favor of an education and independence. “The spouse should be able to continue with education if she/he desires and if both work and attend college they should do so next to each other since new marriages could be shaky.”

Judging from the Talmud, early marriage was considered positive by the early sages. Let me dare to mention that they took into account the hormonal desires of young people and advocated that early marriage sets aside the rest of human life for Torah study and religious devotion.

The contemporary young bride agrees with the sages. “If you’re ready to get married when you are young you shouldn’t have to wait until you’re older if love came at that time,” said the second bride.

The bottom line is that most agree that if a couple marries they should be absolutely sure about their decision and form the bond with confidence. If I was sure enough I could continue my education, run a household, have a kid, care for my husband, and develop as an independent individual well then get me under the chupah ASAP because I’m getting married.

Are you ready for the ride? Realistically, most teenagers are not. For now, I am just happy to be able to cook my perogies in college and enjoy life step-by-step. n
Polina Pinkhasova is a senior at Shulamith High School for Girls in Brooklyn.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization